Citrix Invests in Virtu.al for a Different Perspective

They say a different point of view or perspective can add 50 IQ points when solving a problem. Citrix has just announced the announcement of the stealth startup Virtu.al who’s technology includes the first cross platform mobile OS hypervisor and talent that includes some of the top security researchers in the world.

I love inventions that are born out of an engineers frustration. For mobile app developers a big frustration is test and debug on physical devices. Every day the number of devices to test against increases and it’s about to explode with Wearables unfortunately the available emulators don’t provide an adequate test platform. But we know Software rules.. Chris Wade and the Virtu.al team saw this as an opportunity to disrupt the status quo and they built an ARM based hypervisor that can be hosted on servers like the forth coming HP Moonshot blades and offer up cloud based scalable virtual images for testing mobile apps. The type 1 hypervisor also allows unique insight to an app behavior for debug insight and security analysis. This is a different perspective for Citrix targeting app developers and leveraging unique tools for security testing and app validation.

Looking at security challenges from a traditional defensive vendor or IT perspective has its limitations which show up routinely in new security breaches impacting privacy or financial translations. Looking at security from an offensive hacker perspective provides an entirely new point of view and can identify weaknesses not considered by traditional methods. In fact Google has recently beefed up their security defenses by hiring a well known hacker of the PS3.

The talent that has joined Citrix along with the Virtu.al technology puts Citrix in a unique position to expand and strengthen our position in the industry. For example you may recall Jailbreakme developed by then 19 year old Nick Allegra ( also known as @comex to his 200,000 twitter followers ). Chris Wade the Virtu.al founder has had roles on the defense managing 5,000 servers in 6 data centers as well as playing offense identifying multiple platform flaws plus contributing to Cydia the jailbreak App Store. Other security experts have also joined the team and we continue to invest in new perspectives to provide Citrix a unique advantage to help our customers.

Get ready to look at Citrix from a different perspective and gain your industry knowledge IQ 50 points.

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